Short on votes, Republicans delay House vote on GOP health care bill

Posted: 4:20 pm Thursday, March 23rd, 2017

By Jamie Dupree

After hours of negotiations that featured personal intervention by President Donald Trump, Republican leaders in the Congress were forced to back off a planned vote on a GOP health care bill, unable to find enough votes approve it and send it on to the Senate for further work.

While House leaders said votes were possible on Friday, there was no final agreement to vote on, as more conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus refused to get on board with a deal offered by the White House.

“We have not gotten enough of our members to get to yes,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), the chair of the Freedom Caucus.

“I am still a no at this time,” Meadows told a crush of reporters. “I am desperately trying to get to yes.”

“Looks like the House has returned to “regular disorder,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has been a strong opponent of the GOP health plan.

Some of the offerings to the Freedom Caucus included an effort to radically change or pull back on the “Essential Health Benefits” under the Obama health law, which Republicans argue have drastically increased prices and limited options for consumers.

Here is the list of “Essential Health Benefits” that are now in law:

But moving that way to please conservatives then caused problems for Republican moderates, as several of them announced opposition to the bill during the day on Thursday.

key question: did unexpected WH offer to strip out EHB in House bill win more conservatives or lose more moderates?

It was unclear if there was going to be a vote on Friday – nothing could be scheduled until leaders reach a deal.

Republicans had been excited about the symbolism of voting Thursday on their bill, because that would be exactly seven years since the Obama health reforms were signed into law.

Instead, the seven year anniversary featured more infighting among Republicans, who have long been united in their drive against Obamacare, but have not been able to arrive at a consensus on how best to design a new system on health insurance.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office released a new review of the revised GOP health plan, and found that it would now save $150 billion over ten years – the original version was estimated to reduce the deficit by $337 billion over ten years.